"The Torch of Emancipation" Liner Notes

Friday, September 18th:

Jason Anderson (www.jasonandersonmusic.net from NB Canada)

Jack Turnbull (Washashore Instructor, album release show)

7:00 pm @ the Readymade Gallery, 11 Cove Rd. Orleans Ma (Across the street from Washashore Music)

$15 Suggested Donation

"The Torch of Emancipation" Liner notes:

John Lennon once said "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans".  This quote is applicable to my career in music.

Growing up, playing the guitar in bands, banging on the school's drum set during lunch period, singing in church, on vacations and in school choirs, were never considered the means towards a lucrative career.  Music was simply a fun thing to do that made me feel more connected to my friends and community.  Music was a place where it was socially acceptable to dance, which I did while playing music, filling a physical need to cathartically release. There was little difference in my mind between playing music and hacky sack, skateboarding or other leisure activities.  

To follow the Lennon quote, I was making plans for a career in the visual arts in my young high school days since studio art was the class I excelled in.  I also loved zines and drawing.  I had the misguided idea that the visual arts and design were more practical career paths (financially speaking) than playing music.  I graduated high school in 2003, so the canary had just died in the recording industry coal mine; online file sharing was killing musician's salaries from record sales.  The writing was on the wall, a bad financial moon was rising for musicians. Unless a musician was committed to touring constantly, a grueling existence for even the hardiest of constituents, playing rock and roll was not going to bring in cash like it had done in decades prior for the likes of Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones.

Music was for when all other requirements were met and homework was done.  This does not mean I didn't study music, it was in my curriculum, but the music I gravitated towards almost always involved a guitar of some sort and was culturally labeled as low brow, radical, riff raff or counter cultural.  

Still, music accompanied me wherever I went and when musical opportunity lent itself to me, I grabbed it.  I have played in rock and roll bands since 3rd grade.  

Bands emerged organically; The Max Rebo Band was my third grade band made of me and a neighborhood chum, an extension of our friendship.  The Max Rebo band grew into the Benedict Arnolds, my middle school band, a continuation and expansion of that friendship.  O'malley was a means to maintain contact and friendship with fellow musicians met while working at a summer camp during high school.  Forever 21 was a short lived college band that was about maintaining friendship and leisure activity.  Post-college I was in two bands, Megalife and People Live Here.  Megalife formed around a love of music I developed with a co-worker.  People Live Here, which involved members affiliated with my high school band, came about through jamming while rooming together.  Through all this I have casually recorded solo music and posted it to my bluetiger.bandcamp.com.  They are also documented here and there digitally, either through the internet archive, geocities pages and the "back rooms" of the internet. 

It wasn't until I needed an extra part time job plus my experience as a teacher was proficient that the idea of teaching music started to make sense.  All of a sudden, this leisure activity was the activity I was doing while I wasn't making other plans.  Music was now part of the plan.  

Without knowing it, I realized I had accumulated a lot of musical knowledge, not just theoretically, but also historically, anecdotally, psychically and philosophically.  All of this has come from simply playing music in various settings and environments. My experience is fueled by a love of music, as the activity one does leisurely when the mundanities of existence are dealt with.  

"The Torch of Emancipation", a 10 song album, is the result of my efforts and career.  It is written and played entirely by me and recorded entirely by me.  I have experimented and explored extensively with music in the past, working with drum machines, loop pedals, effects and pre-recorded samples.  "The Torch of Emancipation" shifts the focus to songwriting, lyrics and more conventional song structures.  The guitar tones are more limited.  The whole album expresses a more "back to basics" approach.  

The album, like my musical career, sounds casual and low budget.  This is not to say it is lazy or unreflective music. On the contrary, the album has taken roughly two years to form into its current recorded iteration.  The songs have been perfected through continuous performance at open mics and soirees.    

"Peace and Quiet" is a purposely minimalistic song about purposely subtracting the accesses of everyday existence, including abandoning empire itself entirely.

"I am Not my Pain" is a mantra for the chronically depressed, a reminder that our pain is not who we are, even though we may live with pain and grief forever; pain isn't always something you get over, rather, something you get through.  Borrowed are simply played country chords reminiscent of Hank Williams to create a universality and accessibility to the song's themes.  

"Opal Eyes" is a love song inspired by cuddling during a winter storm, expressing a desire for tranquility and pause. 

"Saint Dan" is an elegy for a friend who recently passed, a man who was "a mountain of modesty" and an early mentor of mine who never lost "his optimism of his will."

"The Torch of Emancipation"'s lyrics are from an unknown narrator who makes references to eco-sabotage.  The song's themes of finding pleasure in simplicity, working by hand, mending, gardening, staring at a beach's horizon, reinforce and are reminiscent of the themes found in in "Peace and Quiet".    

"Witness", a more playful, cheeky and distorted pop song, is sung from the point of view of a nameless witness who is not tolerating the crimes he has seen.  The narrator is arguing against going light on a unspoken criminal, insisting the system "toss the key, leave him behind" and "fine him for every dime".  

"Computer Chess" is a reflection and protest song against internet addiction, especially in a downward shifting economy in an era of climate collapse.  Its lyrics at times sound like orders from a goblin drill sergeant demanding someone to complete their chores for the day before wasting the day simply playing computer chess.  

"Blow Off Your Glove Making Apprenticeship" is written from the perspective of a Benjamin Lay figure. Lay was a Quaker abolitionist in the 1700s.  In his early life, he escaped a toilsome life as a glove making apprentice to become a sailor, only to be exposed to slavery in Barbados, the Middle East and what was to become the United States.  The song's themes refer to the wilds of Belize, slave whips, press gangs and more from the era of the Republic of Pirates. The song I dedicate exclusively to the legacy of Benjamin Lay.  

"Don't Let the Fascists Take it Out on You"  explains how geo-politics and economics create downward mobility for common people.  Owners, buying less US products, see little difference in their lives because workers are the ones who end up paying the difference.  The song references moments of resistance stolen from historical sources ranging from the French Revolution, the Vietnam War and the Cuban Revolution.  

"Down at the Library" is the garage rock finale to the album. It is about a homeless protagonist who spends his days and nights living at the library bettering himself.  The song is an anthem and ode to libraries themselves, not only as fun places to hang out, but life lines for the broken, abused, damaged, the down-and-out, the riff raffs of whom rock and roll was originally made for.  It is a party rock crescendo to an album that started with one foot in folk-country.    

While this album is certainly not my first, nor will it hopefully be my last, it is the beginning of me taking my music SERIOUSLY, not as a session guy, not as a back seat operator, not as a hobbyist, not as a "behind the scenes" guy, but as the sole creator and producer.  This album is 100% me. It is me not puddling around and playing music for leisure.  Rather, it is me attempting to make an album in earnest as an example for my academic students. 

Thank you for listening to "The Torch of Emancipation", I hope you enjoy it. 

-Jack Turnbull